“Great,” Chaz says. “So. How’s the break going?”
“The break?” I echo lamely.
“Yeah,” Chaz says. “The break you and Luke are on.”
“Oh, the break!” Behind Chaz’s head, fireworks are exploding into amazing shapes, like apples and kissing lips. And he’s not even looking. His gaze is riveted to my face. Which I hope he can’t tell is still burning as brightly as the lights of the skyline behind him. “Um, fine. I guess. Luke really seems to like it over there. It’s a lot of work. But then he knew it would be.”
“Well,” Chaz says, picking up his beer and taking a sip of it, “he’s always had a thing for numbers.”
“Yeah,” I say. “Well, he’s just doing this as a favor for his uncle.”
“Yeah,” Chaz says. “Right.”
I glance up at him sharply. “What do you mean by that?” I snap.
“What do you mean, what do I mean?” he asks defensively. “I don’t mean anything. I just said you were right.”
“You sounded like you were being sarcastic,” I say.
“Well, I wasn’t being sarcastic,” he says.
“You think he was desperate for any excuse he could get,” I say, clarity breaking over me suddenly like a crystal ocean wave, “to leave town and get away from me. Because I’m smothering him.”
Oh my God. It’s happening again. My mouth, I mean. Running away without me. What am I even talking about? I mean, I know, of course… it’s what I stay up nights—when I should have fallen asleep hours before, exhausted from adjusting seams all day with Sylvia and Marisol—worrying about.
But why am I mentioning it to Chaz, of all people?
Chaz seems to be wondering the same thing.
“How much wine have you had?” Chaz asks, laughing with disbelief.
“None,” I say. Amazingly, it’s the truth. Also, I’m wishing I’d shut up. But my mouth keeps on moving without me, as usual. “And you’re wrong. I don’t smother him at all. If anything, I don’t pay enough attention to him. And besides, that would completely fly in the face of what you said that day.”
“What day?” Chaz asks, looking more confused than ever.
“The day I told you he proposed. You said he was proposing only because he’s so scared of being alone, he’d rather be with a girl he knows isn’t right for him than be by himself.”
Shut. Up. Lizzie.
Chaz blinks at me. “Well… I still think that’s true.”
“But you can’t have it both ways.” In the distance, the fireworks are still going off, in much quicker succession than before. Boom. Boom. Boom. Each blast seems to be timed to go off with my heartbeat rather than the Bon Jovi song that’s now blasting from the radio around us. I’m standing so close to Chaz that I can see his chest rising and falling in the same rhythm through the front of his short-sleeved polo. It’s hard not to put my hands on his chest to see if his heart is beating in time to mine as well.
God, what is wrong with me?
“Either I’m smothering him or he’s scared to be without me,” I blurt out instead. “Which is it?”
“You are completely insane right now,” Chaz says to me, still laughing a little. “You know that, don’t you?”
The truth is, I do know that. But knowing it doesn’t help.
“You’re his best friend,” I point out. “You’ve known him longer than I have. And you seem to have so many opinions on our relationship. Or at least you used to. I realize we haven’t talked about it in a while because you’ve been so busy with Valencia, but I assume you must have some new theories on the matter. Go ahead. Let’s hear them.”
“Not now,” Chaz says, looking down at me with a grin I can only call suggestive. “Too many people around. Why don’t you come back to my place after this? I’ll be happy to tell you every theory I know. And illustrate them, as well.”
The grin has caused my breath to catch in my throat. Not that I’m about to let him know that.
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I demand. I’m standing so close to him now that our faces are just inches apart. “Is that the only way you can relate to women? As sexual objects?”
“As you know perfectly well,” Chaz says, looking mockly offended, “no. What is the matter with you tonight? Is this about Valencia? Are you jealous or something? I don’t think I should have to remind you that you’re the one who’s engaged.”
“Right. To your best friend.”
“Hey, he’s your fiancé. As you seem to feel the need to keep reminding yourself.”
“At least I have a fiancé,” I say. “At least I’m not an emotional cripple who is afraid to commit myself to someone just because the girl I liked turned out to like girls.”
“Oh yeah?” Chaz’s blue eyes flash more brightly than any of the fireworks that have exploded in the night sky so far. “Well, at least I didn’t get myself engaged to the first guy who asked me to marry him just because I’m in the wedding gown business and I couldn’t stand seeing all my clients getting pretty diamond rings on their fingers and not have one for myself.”
I suck in my breath, outraged—just as my cell phone vibrates in the pocket of my gingham sundress. I have to keep the stupid thing on all the time these days because of bridal gown emergencies. Although I have no weddings scheduled for today.
“That,” I snap at Chaz, “is so untrue. I happen to love Luke. And I want to spend the rest of my life with him.”
“Yeah,” Chaz sneers. “Keep telling yourself that. Maybe someday you’ll even start to believe it.”
I slide the phone out, thinking maybe Luke is calling—although it’s close to two in the morning in France—then see that it’s my mom.
“And I suppose,” I say to Chaz, “you think you’re so much better for me than he is.”
“I’ll tell you one thing,” Chaz says. “I wouldn’t be stupid enough to go off to France for the summer and leave a girl like you on your own with guys like me around.”
Flustered by this, I fumble with the phone, nearly hanging up on my own mother in my attempt to answer her call.
“Mom?” In the background, the fireworks are reaching their crescendo. It’s the show’s grand finale. “I can’t talk right now. I have to call you back—”
“Oh, Lizzie, honey,” my mom interrupts. “I’m so sorry to bother you. I know you’re at Shari’s party”—we’d talked earlier in the week, and I’d mentioned that I’d be attending a party at Shari’s today—“and I don’t want to spoil it for you. But I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anybody else: Gran died.”
The fireworks are so loud, I don’t think I’ve heard her correctly. I put one finger in my ear and yell, “WHAT?”
“Honey, GRAN DIED TODAY. Can you hear me? I just wanted to make sure you didn’t hear it on your machine or from the Dennises or anything like that. Honey? Are you there?”
I murmur something. I don’t know what.
I think I’m in shock.
What had she said?
“Lizzie?” Chaz is looking down at me with a funny expression on his face. “What is it?”
“Can you hear me now?” Mom is asking in my ear. The ear I can hear out of. When I say yes, she says, “Oh good. Anyway, it was very peaceful. She went in her sleep. I just found her there this afternoon, in her chair. She must have dozed off watching Dr. Quinn. You know she figured out how to TiVo it. She had a beer in one hand, I don’t know how she got hold of it. Well, we had a Fourth of July barbecue, she must have sneaked one… Anyway, I just wanted to let you know, we’re planning a memorial service for this weekend. I know how busy you are, but I hope you’ll be able to come. You know how fond she was of you. It wasn’t right that she played favorites with you girls, but you really were always the one she liked best out of all the grandkids—”
The world seems to have tilted. Suddenly, I can’t stand up anymore. I feel my knees give out… but it’s all right, because Chaz has his arm around me and is steering me toward the beer cooler, the lid of which he’s snapped closed. He sits me down on it, then sinks down beside me, one arm around my shoulders, going, “It’s okay. Take it easy. I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
“Gran’s dead,” I say to him. I can’t see him very well.